(Part 2) DEAR MAYOR TYLER …

Some of your public comments since last Tuesday’s City Council meeting suggest to many of us that you misunderstand why we opposed your sports complex.

I write you this letter in response, and with all due respect.

Though I certainly claim no right to speak for all who opposed you, I continuously communicate with thousands of them. Therefore, I stress here what they share in their emails, social media messages, and personal conversations.

In an interview with KSLA News following the subject Council vote, you said …

… “We have people who believe in us, but some of us don’t believe in ourselves.”

… “One of the things that I made note of is the fact that we’ve got to build more pride in our city.”

Mayor Tyler, if you believe we who opposed your plan have lost confidence in local government, and see it as a detriment to living here, you are precisely correct.

But, if you believe we do not love our city, and are not willing to financially and otherwise support it, you are very wrong.

We recognize, especially after this latest conflict, that the Shreveport of which we have long been proud, many of us since birth, is very different from Shreveport now.

The Shreveport we have loved deserves and demands a government which serves us, honors us, and protects us from any and all types of criminality, including public corruption.

We oppose how you and many others in local government disrespect us, especially we who pay the destructively high taxes levied against us.

That disrespect reached a new high when you arranged your proposal to prevent us from voting on (against) it, and allowed us only three weeks with which to study and oppose it.

By way of such manipulation, our government yet again served the same old hidden special interests … at the expense of good and decent residents.

Your plan was condemned by your proven willingness to hide critical information from us, an example of which was your attempt to buy contaminated land for the scheme.

Specifically, Shreveporters with whom I am in continuing contact identify these priorities …

… remedy low pay, low morale and high absenteeism in our police department as the first step in a major initiative against crime;

… seek extraordinary assistance from the U. S. Department of Justice against City Hall corruption, notably including construction, attorney and other professional service contracts;

… to match continuing population loss, reduce spending and taxation;

… sell such money drains as the Convention Center ($1.2 million year), and payment of Sci-Port utility bills ($1 million a year);

… end the bullying which says tax hikes are necessary for an aggressive street repair program;

… conduct an aggressive clean-up of our city’s trashiness, including (significant) mandatory public service for offenders; and,

… publicly commit to maximum openness and transparency in and from your City Hall.

Managed as we must manage our family finances, city government would then deserve support.

Mayor Tyler, we ask you to understand and honor our clear memories of a better Shreveport, notwithstanding its notable failures.

If you honor these beliefs which so many of us share, you would cease your continuing, intended slap against us as “naysayers.”

Nowadays in Shreveport, Mayor Tyler, being a “naysayer” is a compelling civic duty.